Office Games: iTunes Chicken - Control Your Co-Workers' Playlists

It's not unusual to walk into an office setting and see the entire staff wearing headphones. Thanks to the MP3 revolution, we're able to cram thousands of songs onto our computers without busting the internal drive. Most of those folks are using iTunes to listen to their carefully selected work music. But behind every Arcade Fire song, there is an Ace of Bass single waiting to jar the worker from his or her indie slumber.

We here at the Mac|Life compound are pretty confident in our music taste. Some of us are bigger music snobs than others, but even the biggest music elitist has a few secret songs from Britney Spears.

That's where iTunes Chicken comes in.

Using iTunes DJ, we control the playlist of our coworkers. Of course, the also get to control our music. It's a fun way to find out that Ray has Kidz Bop on his computer and to force him to listen to each and every one of them. It's okay, he found that damn Smash Mouth song on my computer and now I'm a believer.

As with any game, there are few rules:

1. You're not allowed to delete or skip over songs in your iTunes DJ playlist, unless it's a duplicate song. Forcing Flo to listen I Saw the Sign by Ace of Base over and over again is cruel and unusual punishment.

2. You get 3 picks per co-worker every 30 minutes. That way the torture is spread out amongst the staff.

3. You have to listen to the music. If you walk away, you have to pause the music.

4. You have to change your AIM status to the song currently playing in iTunes. You have to share your shame with the world.

5. Once you start listening, hide iTunes and hope for the best. It's funner if you have no idea whats coming up next.

Those are the rules, this is how it's done:

Difficulty Level: Easy

What You Need:

>> iTunes>> An iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with the Remote app>> Bad music

Launch iTunes and head to the Playlists section of the sidebar. Select iTunes DJ.

Select Settings in the lower right hand corner.

Adjust the settings to match the screengrab above. For the Welcome Message, change that to whatever you want. A reference to iTunes Chicken will let others know you're playing along. Hit Ok.

Launch the Remote app on your iOS device. You'll see the libraries with iTunes DJ enabled.

Select your victim and start voting on songs for them to listen to. Just tap Request a Song to navigate to the song you want your victim to enjoy. I usually use the genre category to find odd songs.

You can check on the songs various coworkers will soon be forced to listen to and you can see what song they are currently playing.

Once you're settings are complete, set your AIM client to display the song you're currently "enjoying."